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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 108851 to 108900:

  1. We're coming out of the Little Ice Age
    @cruzn246: "Archie, explain it to me." "Why should I? You'll only ignore what I say and/or change the subject yet again. You've proved time and time again you're not interested in learning. Here's a hint for you, though: equilibrium is not a "hard thing to achieve" in a system, it's what a system naturally tends to. Also, a thermal equilibrium isn't necessarily livable. Venus is in a thermal equilibrium (i.e. it's temperature is stable), but it's the closest thing we have to Hell." Well, with Venus you have a completely different situation. It's like comparing apples and oranges. That type of equilibrium, static, is next to impossible in our atmosphere system . We have what is called a dynamic equilibrium. I'll ask you the question that Tom doesn't seem to want to answer. Naturally, without anthropogenic influence, should we be heating up or cooling now?
  2. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    Does anyone have any estimates of how warm September currently is. Wait for a few days. How about some anecdotes to tide us over? It was 113 degrees Fahrenheit today in Los Angeles, California, an all time record. Up here in Seattle last night the minimum was 61 versus normal of 49. Just weather...
  3. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    CBW @ 31 That anti-science denialists have gained so much power in a civilization built upon science is a remarkable thing. Actually, the notion of a civilisation built on 'science' worries me deeply. Science has its rightful and important place but I don't go for 'Scientism.' I would far rather a civilisation based on love and respect for one's fellow human beings preferably grounded in humble acknowledgment of our dependence on a loving God 'in whom we live and move and have our being' as the Greek poet Menander famously put it.
  4. 2010 Climate Change Resource Roundup
    Does anyone have any estimates of how warm September currently is.
  5. Hockey stick is broken
    GC - perhaps indeed. To clarify. You made this statement. "The first test of any paleo-climate reconstruction should be whether it portrays past climate in a plausible way. Any set of proxies that disagrees with history should immediately be discarded." The implication was that the papers you listed did indeed disagree with history. I pointed you to data, relevant to those papers which show you are wrong. The proxy record is consistent with history. Feel free to point to other papers and the historical records that invalidate them. I have no reason to think Alley's temp reconstruction for central greenland is substantially flawed. I am intrigued to know what historical records you have for central greenland to compare it with.
  6. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Getting back to the topic at hand, I find it really interesting that all of this meta-science is being done these days. The climate change "debate" has gotten so off kilter that it is actually a sociological/psychological phenomenon worth studying in its own right. That anti-science denialists have gained so much power in a civilization built upon science is a remarkable thing. That ideology now trumps reality is utterly bizarre. I will leave you with a quote from the patron saint of the conservatives, Ayn Rand: "We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality."
  7. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Adelady @ 27: One of those early USSR famines was the result of dustbowl conditions very like the USA and Australian dustbowls. And for the same agriculturally idiotic reasons. More like war communism and deliberate forced requisitions of grain and produce coupled with forced collectivisation. The famines affected the 'black soil' regions of the Ukraine - arguably the world's richest agricultural land.
  8. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    It's funny to read that some ascribe the pollution in the USSR to a lack of private ownership when the problem was a government that was not accountable to its people. Here in the US, private companies were rampant polluters in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s until they poisoned enough of the landscape (and the people who lived there) that people demanded protection via government regulation, and they got it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with who owned what, and everything to do with a accountable government. Unfortunately, in the case of climate change, by the time the people are up in arms enough to demand action, it will be too late to fix the things they are up in arms about.
  9. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    I for one am perfectly happy to agree that the USSR's environmental (and agricultural) policies were a disaster. If we were talking about whaling, I suppose we could all criticize Japan. For women's rights, we can point to Saudi Arabia (and unfortunately dozens of other nations where misogyny is the norm). And so on. Unfortunately, on the issue at hand for this website (climate change) the USA is the worst offender, with a number of other Western countries vying for second place. If people are convinced that the free market will solve all environmental problems, then they should get on board with the market-based proposals for emissions reduction (cap-and-trade, or carbon taxes). Those are more closely compatible with a "small-government" worldview than the alternative approaches to dealing with climate change (complex and unpredictable regulatory oversight, or massive government-directed geoengineering schemes).
  10. Hockey stick is broken
    apeescape (#43), It seems I misinterpreted your "link Dump". Please accept my apologies. Thank you Ned, once again. Scaddenp, it seems we are having communications difficulties. I will try to rephrase my arguments more clearly tomorrow when there is no Monday night football. While I am doing that, what is your opinion on Alley's temperature reconstructions for central Greenland? Plausible or not?
  11. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Camburn, you've got it a bit backwards, 180 degrees really. In the P&J study salinity itself was derived from CTD: "Salinity was calculated from CTD conductivity, temperature, and pressure data and calibrated to bottle samples standardized with International Association for the Physical Science of the Oceans (IAPSO) Standard Seawater using the 1978 Practical Salinity Scale (PSS-78). Some interesting background information on conductivity-temperature-depth (CTD) samplers here, including dynamic dampness: Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) Sensors Photos of systems, deployment As to whether P&J employed "models" in their analysis, you probably ought to read more carefully, starting w/section 3 on page 10. The techniques described therein might be described as a model though it certainly does not resemble what most of us understand when thinking of that term. You're of course perfectly free to quibble over the semantic employment of "model" but if you've got a problem with the research you'd do better to show specifically how the authors' methods might be improved lest you convey the impression you're just saying "I doubt it." Fortunately P&J are exactingly detailed in describing their techniques so you should be able to understand and then tell us precisely where they've gone wrong, if indeed they have done so and you've got the skill to make productive remarks.
  12. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    One of those early USSR famines was the result of dustbowl conditions very like the USA and Australian dustbowls. And for the same agriculturally idiotic reasons. As for the famines. The comparison there would be with the Chinese who also had lunatic plans and devastating outcomes. And I'm personally convinced that North Korea's continuing failure to produce or acquire sufficient food for its population is similarly based on ideas that are so foolish that they are wicked.
  13. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Adelady @ 4 The USA produced dust bowls - the YSSR several famines which killed many millions. Phila @ 14: The saying in Soviet era Poland was, 'We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.' Not much responsibility for anything there. Yes there were some idealists but the society was deeply permeated by cynicism. Doug; Abstinence education - a touch off topic - yet I never cease to be amazed at the casual way in which people will entrust their safety to a thin rubber sheath which slips off eveer so easy and carries a 10% failure rate in field conditions.
  14. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    Not a lot, JB. The simple fact is that all these contributions and variations associated with biological processes within the carbon cycle are totally swamped by us burning materials that are supposed to act as carbon sinks. These materials sequestered their carbon little by little during many millions of years of carbon cycling through these processes and we're releasing them in a couple of dozen decades.
  15. Hockey stick is broken
    gallopingcamel writes: What is this "link dump" thing? I think apeescape was referring to the bunch of links that she/he included immediately below that line. It wasn't a remark about your own comment.
  16. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    archiesteel, I really don't think one should accept CW's misleading framework of judging warming projections for 2100 based on linear extrapolation of past warming trends. All the models show warming starting slowly, then accelerating over the first half of this century. In the second half of the century, warming either continues to accelerate (under "business as usual") or slows down again (if we successfully manage to reduce emissions early enough). In neither case, however, is a linear extrapolation of pre-2010 warming a reliable guide to the projected evolution of global mean surface temperature over the remainder of the century.
  17. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    Sooooo.... with CH4, from Agriculture, how is that different? The carbon atom has come from photosynthesis, and its basically doing the same thing, and with the life cycle o CH4 being 7/8 years, wouldnt an equilibrium be reached in that time frame from a growth in the total biomass, and subsequent changes require an increase in total biomass? What am i missing here?
  18. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    CW: 1. CRU indicates a warming rate that is very near the best estimate, and completely in the margin of error. 2. GISS indicates a value that is exactly the best estimate, therefore countering your point. 3. That is completely irrelevant. At least you agree with a 1.8C/century increase. That's cause for concern, don't you think?
  19. Hockey stick is broken
    I am also still interested what paper you think Tamino mounted an inappropriate defense.
  20. Hockey stick is broken
    GC - This thread started elsewhere with the claim you didnt like Tamino because he supported papers that were in conflict with the historical record. The papers you objected to only cover the last 1000 years. I am not selling history short (as rest of comment indicates), only that objections to those particular papers are for events of last 1000 years. If you have other papers that you think imply conflict with the historical record, then name them. Your comments so far ignore my objection to this. Further you claim that Mann inferred global climate from only Yamal tree rings. Also not true - the paper used a variety of proxies from many location; that was what was new. The first multi-proxy reconstruction. I am not clear whether you are agreeing that climate science view of YD in concordance with history (no problem then) or not.
  21. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    BP, that's all more or less totally irrelevant to anything in this discussion. You've suggested that a "Principle of Maximum Entropy" means the climate must have "strong negative feedbacks" that would presumably prevent anthropogenic climate change. That claim is incompatible with the numerous episodes of climate change that have occurred during the past couple of million years. I take it that your new comment means that the previous one is no longer operational ...
  22. Hockey stick is broken
    skywatcher (#42), You are right to be wary about applying measurements from a small area to the entire globe, so get your blinkers off and acknowledge that is exactly what Mann tried to do. He took measurements on spruce trees from a few sites all in high latitudes and tried to draw conclusions relating to the entire planet. Take a look at the Yamal peninsula studies that came down to a few carefully selected trees. I won't send you the links as that might offend "apeescape".
  23. Hockey stick is broken
    apeescape (#43), What is this "link dump" thing? Scaddenp asked for data so I sent a NOAA ftp link. Then I try to help by sending a reference that has pre-digested the data into a series of charts. I will read your links; perhaps you will be kind enough to read mine unless you are afraid of being confused by facts.
  24. Hockey stick is broken
    scaddenp (#44), Starting at the end, the Younger Dryas is relevant because it is another example of Alley's ice cores being in synch with history/archeology. You are selling history short if you think it only goes back 1,000 years. There is no merit in multi-proxy studies if most of the proxies are junk science. Mann's tree rings should have been thrown out the minute they failed to model the warm and cold periods over the last 1,000 years.
  25. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi Péter short wavenlegth does that because they are more similar in size to the droplets (hundreds of nm). At long wavengths you loose the dependence on size. The vertical distribution of clouds does matter, but it's another story. Water vapour concentration rapidly falls with altitude anyway.
  26. Philippe Chantreau at 08:17 AM on 28 September 2010
    The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    Chriscanaris "For my part, I'm more surprised by the relative lack of traction of contrarian arguments..." It is not surprising at all that they are almost absent from the litterature, considering that these arguments' grounding in reality ranges from tenuous to non existent. They do, however, enjoy a traction in the media that is out of proportion with their validity.
  27. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    BP - "even with the present insolation & CO2" care to back that up please? It doesnt match the opinion I heard from Tom Crowley on the subject and with CO2 heading to pliocene levels, it doesnt match paleoclimate indication. Why did we enter the ice age cycle in first place? Milankovitch cycles still happened in Miocene/pliocene. The total solar output has been steadily (if slowly) increasing? Changes in the atmosphere due to steady low of CO2 is best bet. A reset to pliocene means all bets are off. However, somewhat beside the point for humanity for the next 10,000 years.
  28. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    #117 Riccardo at 06:22 AM on 28 September, 2010 Absorption coefficient depends on the total water column, not on the size of the particles It is not so. It may not depend on size of droplets and ice crystals much (SW absorption does), but plain water vapor distribution is also very uneven as it depends on history of individual air parcels, not just local parameters. The distribution is uneven both along lateral and vertical directions and as temperature is not uniform either, outgoing radiation depends on the fine details of it, not only the column integrated value.
  29. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    "As I indicated, if you use 1975 as your start point (25 years, a nice round number) then you get trends that are higher than the low estimate." Very well, since 1975 (35 years), Least squares fit, nearest tenth degree per century: 1.7 CRU 1.8 GISS We may note that: 1. the CRU indicates a century warming rate below the best estimate for the most optimistic scenario 2. the GISS indicates a century warming rate right at the best estimate for the most optimistic scenario 3. both rates indicate DEceleration from the 1975 to present period to the 1979 to present period.
  30. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    #115 Ned at 02:08 AM on 28 September, 2010 Obviously the climate has changed radically in the past. Yes, it did. However, the ice albedo feedback is really a strong positive one, you don't need rocket science to see this. If ice cover reached 30° latitude somehow (and there are hints it could during the next glacial cycle), Earth would enter a "permanent" icehouse state ("snowball Earth") even with the present insolation & CO2. As sea ice extent grows tremendously, evaporation diminishes and the so called "arctic window" (IR wavelengths above the 14 μm CO2 absorption line) opens up. With decreased SW absorption and increased LW outbound losses, the cold state is stabilized beyond repair for tens of million years. Due to the present configuration of continents the climate system is a bistable one with a considerable hysteresis between the two possible (cold vs. warm) states. As you can see during the last several million years the amplitude of glacial cycle keeps increasing while its frequency is decreasing, which is a sure sign of a would-be phase change in chaotic systems. As long as sea ice extent does not grow too large, the process is self-limiting, because as soon as elevation of ice sheet surfaces above continental masses become too high, they cease to be effective radiators, for while their surface temperature is very low, potential temperature of air masses above them is still relatively high. It means as air is cooled above the surface and descends along the slope (so called katabatic wind) it is heated adiabatically, along a 3 km high slope by as much as 30°C (because this air is very dry). It means on the plateau radiative losses relative to sea level temperature of the air parcel are 40-50% lower. On the other hand if even the sea surface at mid latitudes freezes over, radiative losses are not limited this way while most of the incoming short wave radiation is reflected back to space. The extreme cold coming out of the Antarctic region during southern winter (like the recent cold spell above South America) is generated this way, above floating ice, not the elevated ice sheet. Come the next glaciation, sea ice can easily extend to the tropics, as it has happened several times in the deep past. It would be a true disaster for both humanity and nature. During the present epoch ice albedo effect is asymmetric. The extent of low lying snow covered surface is limited and it can only decrease so much, while it has considerably more room to increase. Insolation on lower latitudes is also higher on average, so it has a more pronounced effect should it get reflected. Still, anything that decreases snow albedo (like soot pollution) has an immediate warming effect right at the surface, even if the sky is covered by low clouds. Clean snow is a special stuff. It is white in the visible portion of the spectrum, but pitch "black" in IR (hence an effective radiator at low temperatures due to Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation). Winter snow cover on the vast low lying continental areas of the Northern Hemisphere can act the same way. As soon as anthropogenic soot pollution gets limited, the multidecadal growing trend of NH December/January snow cover would extend well into springtime, bringing severe cooling into the region.
  31. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    muoncounter #38: "Why are we talking about breathing as a CO2 source?" Sometimes it isn't enough to simply disprove a 'skeptic' argument with one line of reasoning. If you show it is ludicrous five different ways, stamp it into the ground, set it on fire, and bury it in the mud then maybe they'll consider that it isn't ABSOLUTE proof of the rightness of their opinion. Another fun fact... the UPPER estimate of CO2 emissions from volcanoes is about 300 million tons per year. Which is only 1/10th the emissions from humans breathing each year... which is itself only 1/10th the emissions from human industry each year.
  32. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    ClimateWatcher - That's the entire point of this topic. Asymmetric societal forcings and media representation tend to dumb down the science.
  33. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    "assessment of new scientific findings to show that the climatological consensus is insufficiently pessimistic." I'm not sure that pessimism ( or optimism for that matter ) are at all part of the scientific method.
  34. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    ClimateWatcher quotes the IPCC: A temperature rise of about 0.2 °C per decade is projected for the next two decades for all SRES scenarios. That "about 0.2 °C per decade" is a rough approximation of the middle of the distribution of model runs through 2020, not the "Best estimate of the low scenario as of September 2010". Please stop posting misleading claims about the IPCC projections. Again, here is the actual comparison of observations to the range of model projections:
  35. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    @ClimateWatcher: also, you should stop using the MT values since the IPCC predictions do not deal with that area of the atmosphere.
  36. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    From 2000-2006, the population of China increased about 3% (eyeballed from the graph here). During that same period, China's CO2 emissions from fossil fuels more than doubled (see xls files here). Why are we talking about breathing as a CO2 source?
  37. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    @Ned: thanks for the precise figures. I confess I was eyeballing (Wood for Trees should update their tool to provide numerical values on a mouseover...) @ClimateWatcher The trend since January 1979 is indeed slightly under the low scenario estimate (by 0.2C, or 11%), but that estimate is not based on that time period. It is based on data sets (such as GISS and HadCRUT) that go further back, and thus provide a better statistical basis to establish trends. As I indicated, if you use 1975 as your start point (25 years, a nice round number) then you get trends that are higher than the low estimate. Cherry-picking to make a point isn't the right way to test theories.
  38. Same Ordinary Fool at 06:59 AM on 28 September 2010
    The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    This is one of those papers that is best read backwards. Look at the results first to better understand what is being argued. The paper itself: http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/3/0/9/1/9/pages309195/p309195-1.php The Asymmetry of Scientific Challenge argument uses an empirical assessment of new scientific findings to show that the climatological consensus is insufficiently pessimistic. The empirical assessment by the four newspapers (despite a bias in general articles and editorials) is that new scientific findings are 'worse than expected'.
  39. Hockey stick is broken
    GC - your initial accusation is that MBH and later reconstructions supported by Tamino etc do not honour the historical record so for starters that should limit you to the considerations of the last 1000 years, NH only, as earlier climate events are outside the scope of the papers supposed ignorance of history. Fig 6.10 in AR4 WG1 has summary figure of the various reconstruction, and Box 6.4, Fig 1 shows the individual temperature proxies for different parts of NH. And what do these show? Well for starters, where is the mismatch with history? The proxy records for sites in the area of historical records match what you can infer about temperatures in the pre-thermometer age. That things like the "medieval warm period" occurred at different times in different places is established from the historical records for Greenland, Europe, Russia and China. The NH reconstruction do indeed show a LIA which may be global (you would expect it to be from what we know of forcing at the time). I find no evidence of a problem here though I do certainly accept that MBH, being the first attempt at a multi-proxy reconstruction, needed improved methodologically and has been. I dont think its substantial conclusions has changed much with later reconstructions. Perhaps you could also point out which defense of a paper by Tamino you find so objectionable. Looking back further for evidence that climate science and history are in opposition also produces a blank. Was it warm in the Bronze age? Almost certainly warmer than now is what the climate science says (see WGA 6.5.1.3 for papers). Solar production proxies globally and orbital forcing for NH point to an expectation of warmer temperatures which is borne out in historical and paleoclimatic record. There is evidence of warming similar to now in SH as well. Just as well we dont have that solar forcing now on top of our CO2 concentrations. Younger Dryas - I am not sure why you brought this up as for life of me I can see why you think there is a conflict with "historical record" - perhaps you could explain? I cant see that archeological record is much easier to interpret than the paleoclimate one and boy does it have fun with YD. Be aware that YD is area where techniques are being refined, better time calibration is coming and so watch for new papers in next couple of years. Also note that events like YD are features of glacial terminations and thankfully we lack evidence that interglacial periods are prone to such rapid climate shifts. Time for a quick reset of the respect-o-meter perhaps in face of all that data?
  40. Does breathing contribute to CO2 buildup in the atmosphere?
    In some sense, breathing removes carbon! A typical human contains ~18% by mass C, or about 13 kg for a 70 kg person. So since my birth, I have been recycling tons of carbon (for no net change), but also sequestering about 13 kg of C. If I wasn't there to eat those plants, they would more quickly have rotted and returned the CO2 to the atmosphere. As long as I am breathing, I will continue to sequester my share of C. When I stop breathing, that C will be returned to the atmosphere. The more people, the more C is sequestered in our collective bodies! (6 billion people) * (0.06 tons/person) --> about 0.1 billion tons of sequestered C. Basically, any net global increase in biomass will sequester C (for example, the annual variations in CO2 as the plants in the N Hemisphere grow during the spring and summer). Since I personally am 80 kg of biomass, I am sequestering my share of carbon for ~70 years. (Of course this is a bit simplistic. If people were not around, then other animals would increase to take advantage of the food supplies, and those animals would sequester the C in a similar manner. And people have cut down forests around the world, returning that sequestered C more quickly. I suspect this effect greatly outweighs the increase in human sequestered C. And both of these are presumably greatly outweighed by the burning of fossil fuels over the last century.)
  41. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    "if anything, global climate disruption may prove to be significantly worse than has been suggested in scientific consensus estimates to date..." That is completely contradicted by the IPCC. The IPCC AR4: 1. "Low scenario" refers to B1, the most optimistic scenario family." 2. "Best estimate for a 'low scenario' is 1.8 °C" ( per century ) 3. 1979 through Aug 2010 least squares fit ( deg C per century to the nearest tenth): 1.0 RSS MT 0.5 UAH MT 1.6 RSS LT 1.4 UAH LT 1.6 CRU 1.7 GISS 1.4 Hadley SST All temperature trends are below the 1.8 best estimate for the "most optimistic scenario" Where else has anyone read that global warming is less than even the most optimistic scenario?
    Moderator Response: You are simultaneously posting virtually identical comments in another thread (The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC). Please try to avoid starting duplicate versions of the same discussion in multiple threads.
  42. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi - You seem to be claiming that the distribution of water vapor will change to increase IR radiation, providing a strong negative feedback. As has been pointed out, modelled and empirical evidence indicates that the actual climate sensitivity is ~3°C for a doubling of CO2 or an equivalent radiological forcing. That indicates that your negative feedback does not exist, certainly not at the level you seem to be suggesting. As Riccardo points out, atmospheric absorption/emission in these IR bands depends on the integrated total water column. Finally - it seems to me that increased inhomogeneity (which would be required to emit more IR) represents a local increase of order. A global higher IR emission won't have any influence on local order - global IR is an emergent phenomena, the sum of local events. The mechanisms are important; your increased inhomogeneity means lower local entropy, and is not a natural direction for the system to move in.
  43. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    Ned, The IPCC also said this: "A temperature rise of about 0.2 °C per decade is projected for the next two decades for all SRES scenarios." Some may contend that internal variability makes two decades too brief a period to predict for. And clearly, the briefer the period, the more the starting time matters to the trend. But that is not my prediction, but rather the words of the IPCC. And analyzing the results of predictions is how we test theories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report#Model-based_projections_for_the_future
  44. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    archiesteel, Fortunately for us, all of the above trends are completely below the range of the IPCC 'high end scenario': "Best estimate for a "high scenario"[10] is 4.0 °C with a likely range of 2.4 to 6.4 °C" Most of the above trends are IN the range for the 'low scenario': "Best estimate for a "low scenario"[9] is 1.8 °C with a likely range of 1.1 to 2.9 °C" But ALL the measurements are below the 'Best Estimate' of the 'low scenario', which the IPCC describes as the "most optimistic". Hence, my point that warming IS taking place, but at a rate LOWER than even the "most optimistic" per the IPCC. The middle troposphere measurements, which are modeled to contain the "hot spot", and warm at a rate higher than the surface, do in fact exhibit a trend which is completely OUT of range for the SURFACE as modeled by the IPCC "low scenario". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report#Model-based_projections_for_the_future
  45. The Big Picture (2010 version)
    Berényi Péter what you describe is a feedback mechanism, not a cycle. As for "the same level of atmospheric moisture can give a wide range of IR opacities depending on its distribution", in the wavelength range of interest it's not so. Absorption coefficient depends on the total water column, not on the size of the particles. Scattering, which in general depends on particle size, is irrelevant given the longer wavelength of the EM wave with respect to particle size.
  46. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    ClimateWatcher writes: All less than the IPCC best estimate. Or, actually, right in the middle of the IPCC projected range for 2010.
  47. The Phony War: Lies, Damn Lies and the IPCC
    Right with you: 1979 through Aug 2010 least squares fit ( deg C per century to the nearest tenth): RSS MT 1.0 UAH MT 0.5 RSS LT 1.6 UAH LT 1.4 CRU 1.6 GISS 1.7 Had SST 1.4 All less than the IPCC best estimate. MT, where warming is modeled to be maximal, below the significance limit.
  48. The Asymmetric War on Climate Change: No Cause for Alarmism?
    I'm concerned that this thread is rapidly approaching the danger zone. The ice is pretty thin, but I think doug_bostrom @17 makes an excellent point about what's "practical." Getting back to the topic of the post, "scientific certainty" arguments are obviously not practical, because we're obviously going to have a very long wait before we achieve "scientific certainty" on this question or any other. I fail to see anything "practical" in postponing the possibility of taking action until some imaginary future arrives. The fact that some "skeptics" also supported the invasion of Iraq, or abstinence education, explains why some of us are irked by their demands for scientific certainty, as does the fact that these demands never seem to extend to "alarmist" theories on the effects of climate legislation. But really, all of that's a distraction. Politics aside, it's logically incoherent to demand scientific certainty before action, and to assume that uncertainty about AGW means it'll be much better than we expect, rather than much worse. As such, these stances are inherently impractical. Arguing over politics obscures that point, IMO.
  49. Urban Heat Islands: serious problem or holiday destination for skeptics?
    Ned, I am not familiar with this type of data analysis. I wondered if you could remove the UHI "bias" by choosing countries that have had negative population growth and doing an analysis on them. I checked on Wikipedia and most of eastern Europe, including Russia and Poland, and Japan have had negative population growth for many years. If you showed their warming was the same as areas with increasing population (or the global average) would that show that the UHI effect BP claims was not true? It might be possible to lose population in one area and gain it elsewhere and have an effect, but that would be an extraordinary set of circumstances. Greenland has had population decline and we know how fast it has been cooling there. I thought it was ironic that Poland had negative population growth and BP is from there.
  50. Billions of Blow Dryers: Some Missing Heat Returns to Haunt Us
    Camburn, When I read the linked paper they say on page 7 that they use thermometers to measure the temperature, not models and salinity. Can you say where you find them to suggest otherwise? They state they use only high quality temperature data from direct measurements made at least twice in the same location. Possibly the Wegener study used models?

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